1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a storage container adapted for use in an ink jet head for forming a record by discharging liquid thereby forming a flying liquid droplet, and more particularly to a storage container adapted for delivery to general users in the commercial systems of replaceable and disposable ink jet head.
2. Related Background Art
As is already well known, in ink jet recording, a flying liquid droplet is formed discharging liquid ink from an orifice of an ink jet recording head and to deposit said droplet onto a recording sheet, thereby recording various characters and patterns by the group of thus formed ink dots.
From the standpoint of maintenance of ink jet recording, the ink employed in ink jet recording is composed of a small amount of dye dissolved in water, with the addition of a water-miscible organic solvent such as alcohol, if necessary. Usually water represents the highest proportion in the composition. Consequently, if the ink jet recording head is left unused for a prolonged period, evaporation of water from the ink takes place from the discharge port of said head, thereby elevating the dye concentration in the ink and eventually causing solid deposition of the dye after a long period, whereby the discharge port is blocked and becomes incapable of ink discharge. This phenomenon has been pointed out as a weak point of the ink jet recording.
In order to overcome this drawback, there has been proposed a disposable ink jet recording head which is mounted on the printer and is replaced by a new one when the ink is used up or the ink discharge becomes impossible. However, even in such a type of the head, there can still occur the same drawback in the course of storage as merchandise.
On the other hand, such an ink jet recording head usually has 10 to 256 discharge ports, but such discharge ports are preferably present in a higher density and in a larger number, in order to achieve a higher printing speed and/or a higher print quality. However an increase in the number of the discharge ports will lead to an increase in the number of electric wirings for driving the ink jet recording head, or in the number of electrical contacts between the ink jet recording head and the printer. For example, a head with 48 discharge ports requires 96 contacts in total, namely two for each discharge port. It is extremely difficult technically to connect a large number of electrical contacts with sufficient reliability, simultaneous with the mounting of the ink jet recording head on the printer. On the other hand, the use of an ordinary connector, if employed for securing reliability, is impractical because of the bulkiness of the connecting part.
It is already known to incorporate a part of the drive system in the ink jet recording head, in order to reduce the number of such electrical contacts. More specifically, the reduction in the number of electrical contacts is being done by incorporating a shift register, a transistor array or a diode array in the recording head. Such an ink jet recording head incorporating semiconductor components has to have sufficient measures against electrostatic charges to which such components are susceptible.
In order to achieve prevention of such ink solidification and electrostatic destruction, there has been adopted a method of placing the ink jet recording head in a molded aluminum container and adhering an aluminum cover sheet to said container. However, such packaging method is not inexpensive. Besides, since the packaged merchandise cannot be identified from the outside at the time of purchase, the user may break the seal to confirm the contents.
On the other hand, a so-called blister package often used for example for stationery goods may not be adequeate in terms of prevention of ink solidification and of electrostatic charge.